A fine balance - European theme parks and culturing July 2020

[Sallyingforth]

I have read thousands of trip reports and found them extremely helpful, so this fine October morning while on a long train journey with no book to read I thought I'd start my own!

This is my pre-trip report for our summer 2020 road trip from the north of England to France to Germany and then the Netherlands and home again.

I don't know how to do pictures or indexes so it could be a bit dry!

[Sallyingforth]

Us

So there are four of us, me, my dear DH and our two teenage sons. They're gorgeous. You'll have to take my word for it because they no longer like featuring on the internet.

This Easter we went on a once in a life time holiday to Florida. For us it probably will end up being once in a life time because we are not very well off and are not very good at saving. It was a case of unexpected money and planets aligning and us going for it. It was magnificent. We had five nights at Disney's POFQ, six nights in a villa on Anna Maria Island (including a trip to BUsch Gardens) then three nights at Universal staying at the one that isn't the Hard Rock or the Portofino (total blank sorry can't remember it's name but we loved it). We loved the whole trip. Obviously we didn't have enough time at Disney and obviously we do really.need to go back and do it again, but at the moment it's not on the cards.

After we got back home we carried on watching all the vlogs on YouTube and we particularly got into watching Themepark worldwide. I think they're really likeable people and although (if Shaun ever reads this! ) they need to be a little more succinct (! ) they've really got us hooked and interested in all the parks out there. So much so that we decided to plan a trip of our own...

[Sallyingforth]

Plans.

The boys are really into the theme parks and if it was up to them they would have done a park a day for a fortnight. But I am old and knackered. My idea was to do a week of theme parking and then a week of relaxing in france, somewhere with a pool and easy access to wine and cheese and bread...

My DH came up with a plan for a full on week of theme.parking in the Netherlands and Germany and then into France for relaxing followed by a mammouth two day drive home (we are very northern). The plan was what we thought we wanted, but looking at it it didn't feel right. Firstly it seemed a shame to drive through Germany without seeing any of it and secondly we weren't keen on the long drive just before going back to work.

After a few weeks and lots of negotiations we came up with a plan we could all agree on. We've cut the theme parks down to 3- sadly that meant losing Eftling - I would have chosen Efling over Walibi Holland but obviously I know nothing as for the kids it's all about Untamed! . It's ok though, I think its a good pay off to have more time to do some touristy things. The second big change is that we are going to do France first and come home via the Amsterdam to Newcastle ferry in order to make it an easier drive home. It's a right old hotch potch but we are happy with it. So the plans are-

Day One - drive down to the eurotunnel after school. Stay in premier inn at Ashford.
Day Two - across to France. Drive to South Burgundy. Stay for 6 nights in awesome medieval tower with pool.
Day Eight - drive to Europa Park. Stay Two nights at Hotel Colloseo.
Day Ten- the romantic Rhine! We have two nights booked in a gasthaus in Oberwesel.
Day Twelve - Phantasialand
Day Thirteen to Fifteen - the Netherlands. We'll stay for 3 nights in gorgeous Amersfoort. We'll visit Amsterdam, Walibi Holland and the windmills.
Night fifteen- night sailing home to Newcastle.

Will go into more detail on each later. I have reached my train
destination this morning!

[florida_2012]

Originally Posted by Sallyingforth

Plans.

The boys are really into the theme parks and if it was up to them they would have done a park a day for a fortnight. But I am old and knackered. My idea was to do a week of theme parking and then a week of relaxing in france, somewhere with a pool and easy access to wine and cheese and bread...

My DH came up with a plan for a full on week of theme.parking in the Netherlands and Germany and then into France for relaxing followed by a mammouth two day drive home (we are very northern). It was good but we were a bit unsure about it. Firstly it seemed wrong to drive through Germany without seeing any of it and secondly we weren't keen on the long drive just before going back to work. It seemed to negate all the relaxing we would have done.

After a few weeks and lots of negotiations we came up with a plan we could all agree on. We've cut the theme parks down to 3 so that we have more time to see a bit of the countries we are going to and we are going to do France first and come home via the Amsterdam to Newcastle ferry to make it less arduous on the way home. Hoping we have now cracked it! So the plans are-

Day One - drive down to the eurotunnel after school. Stay in premier inn.
Day Two - across to France. Drive to South Burgundy. Stay for 6 nights in awesome medieval tower with pool.
Day Eight - drive to Europa Park. Stay Two nights at Hotel Colloseo.
Day Ten- the romantic Rhine! We have two nights booked in a gasthaus in Oberwesel.
Day Twelve - Phantasialand
Day Thirteen to Fifteen - the Netherlands. We'll stay for 3 nights in gorgeous Amersfoort. We'll visit Amsterdam, Walibi Holland and the windmills.
Night fifteen- night sailing home to Newcastle.

Will go into more detail on each later. I have reached my train
destination this morning!

See more...

Sounds great. A nice adventure. Agree that it would be a shame to not see the country. Love the variety of Europe

[RM2016]

Sounds fabulous, I’ve just broached this very idea with my gang today for next summer with Efteling, Europa Park then down to Italy for Gardaland and a wee chill out in the sun, no idea how feasible it is with 6 kids but we can but try! I’ll be keeping an eye on your plans as I’m open to suggestions and ideas x

[DisneyDaffodil]

Sounds a very exciting trip, I look forward to following. Hope you have a great time 😀

[Sallyingforth]

I'm getting dangerous! This ^^^ is where we are staying in France for the first part of our holiday. We have had lovely French holidays before but usually much further down south.

This time we needed to be a (self-imposed) maximum of 6 hours drive from Calais and 4 hours drive from Europa Park. I did a lot of pouring over maps and decided that Macon was in the right ball park. From there I did a lot of Airbnb searching and came up with this incredible medieval watchtower near Cluny. It has a gorgeous pool

and an unusual toilet situation that I'm trying not to think about!

We are hoping that the weather will be good. I realise that we are.not far enough south for it to be guaranteed. Our plan for the five full days we are there is mostly to chill. But we will definitely explore Cluny. It used to be the centre of the church until the naughty monks got too corrupt and greedy.

We also see that we are on the Green Lane cycle way so it might be nice to hire some bikes and discover wine country

And in an extremely lucky turn of events the tour de france will be 30 minutes away from us on our second day. The cowbells are definitely getting packed (but maybe not the costumes! )

[Sallyingforth]

Thank you for the comments. RM2016 that plan sounds really good. Wish I had thought of Italy too!

[DisneyDaffodil]

The watchtower looks amazing, it would have tempted me too (although I agree about the toilet 😂 )

[Sallyingforth]

haha Disneydaffodil, it is going to be very interesting!